The present invention concerns data acquisition and pertains particularly to a data acquisition instrument architecture with flexible data acquisition, processing and display.
Electronic instruments such as network analyzers and spectrum analyzers often allow data acquisition over many channels and include a display capable of displaying one or more traces. For example, Model Number 8719D microwave vector network analyzers are available from Agilent Technologies, Inc., having a business address of 395 Page Mill Road, P.O. Box #10395, Palo Alto, Calif.94306. An 8719D microwave vector network analyzer has a four parameter display that can display all four S-parameters simultaneously. Any combination of reflection and transmission parameters can be displayed, with magnitude, phase, group delay, Smith chart, polar, standing wave ratio (SWR), or time-domain formats. Results may viewed in overlay or split-screen format on a liquid crystal display (LCD) color display with one, two or four graticules. See, for example, Agilent 8719D. 8720D. and 8722D Microwave Vector Network Analyzers brochure, available as part number 5966-4007E, copyright 1998,2000, from Agilent Technologies, Inc.
Architecture for prior art electronic instruments tend to limit a user to a fixed set of measurement acquisition, post-processing, and display options. For example, previous analyzers have fixed the number of channels, restricting to user to a fixed maximum number of measurements.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention an electronic instrument includes instrument hardware. A data acquisition engine schedules time sharing of the instrument hardware. Channel objects act each as a client of the data acquisition engine. The channel objects each included a channel buffer that contains data obtained from the instrument hardware. Measurement objects are each a client of one of the plurality of channel objects. Each measurement object processes data obtained from a channel buffer of a channel object to which the measurement object is a client.
In the preferred embodiment, display window objects are each a client of at least one of the plurality of measurement objects, each display window object displaying data processed by any measurement object to which the display window object is a client. Also in the preferred embodiment, memory within the electronic instrument is allocated among object types to accommodate a user specified mix of object types.
The present invention provides a user with flexibility in allocating resources within an electronic instrument.